1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for originating a call in a mobile communication terminal, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for performing phone number search and call origination by using an image in a mobile communication terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile communication terminals are becoming increasingly popular because of their convenience of carrying. Thus, service providers (terminal manufacturers) have competitively developed terminals with very special functions in order to attract more users, and as a result of this, a terminal with a multimedia input/output device has recently been popularized. However, a phonebook search/dialing function leaves much room for improvement in user convenience.
A phonebook function employed in a mobile communication terminal refers to a function that enables the user of a mobile communication terminal to perform phone number searches mainly by inputting a person's name and finding a desired phone number in a search result listed in order by name. In addition to this, the phonebook function enables the user to perform a phone number search by using a partial phone number, group classification, storage time or the like. Some terminals provide a direct dialing function using speech recognition.
Further, there is widely used abbreviated dialing technology in which one- to three-digit abbreviated numbers, for example, 1000 abbreviated numbers from 0 to 999, are assigned to frequently used phone numbers, and dialing is easily performed using the assigned abbreviated number without inputting the whole phone number.
Among the 1000 abbreviated numbers as mentioned above, not all abbreviated numbers are actually used for abbreviated dialing. Also, in order to originate a call by using the abbreviated dialing, the user of a mobile communication terminal must memorize an abbreviated number corresponding to a desired destination phone number, which causes inconvenience to the user. That is, there is a problem in that, the user of a mobile communication terminal does not know abbreviated numbers other than those assigned to frequently used phone numbers.